Princess of Extinction
by Penny Smiles
Summary: An ancient evil from beyond the stars returns to the world to fulfill a grand scheme eons in the making. Can Princess Twilight Sparkle, long having outlived her friends and family, adapt and transform to face this new threat alone? Or will she be forced to bear witness to an age of extinction? *Updates every sunday.*
1. Chapter 1: Reminiscence of Generations

"Princess Celestia, what's it like to live forever?"

A violet unicorn filly looked up towards her mentor's motherly gaze, huddled under her white wings as the two sat together on a grassy hill. The moon above shone brightly and full, illuminating the dark valley with its lunar light as a cool night breeze carried an air of calm serenity.

"Hmm, now that's an interesting question for a girl your age, Twilight," Celestia said responded. The filly melted under the sun spirit's serene gentle smile.

"Well, I was just curious, I mean…" Twilight gazed at the infinite stars above. "If you could live forever, what kinds of things would you see? Like, I don't know, what would it be like to be able to meet all the ponies ever, or be able to go all the places possible and see all the kinds of things that happened all the time. Maybe… , maybe even see all those stars in the sky, or go up to them and touch them!" She pursed her lips. "I don't think I'm wording what I'm trying to say correctly."

Celestia chuckled. "I get what you're trying to say. It's a question everyone asks themselves at some point in time during their lives." She nudged Twilight. "Tell me, how old do you think I am?"

"Well, um, I was thinking since you lived forever into the future, you'd also live forever, but towards the past too." Twilight pursed her lips again. "Ugh, sorry. I mean to say, you've always existed. I'm being confusing, aren't I?"

"Just as long as you're not confusing yourself," Celestia teased, earning a blush from her student. "Not at all. Actually, I'm like you. I was born just like everyone else."

"Really?" Twilight tilted her head to the side.

"Mmhmm. I had a mother and a father, and a cute little sister too, a thousand years ago. I remember the days when me and my younger sister would play under the stars, laughing and giggling while we played 'tag' or 'hide-and-seek'. A simpler time, where I didn't have to worry about raising the sun or moon, a time where I didn't have to worry about ruling Equestria, a time where I could just be happy. Just me and little Luna, and sometimes Discord too.

Celestia turned her head towards the night sky once more, gazing with melancholy at the mare in the moon. "But nothing lasts forever. As anything with a beginning, everything must come to end. Ponies live, ponies grow, and ponies die. We live our short lives as what we are, changing bit by bit every year, until the time comes to watch others follow the same cycle of life. What will remain of our own ventures will simply be memories of those who carried our legacy onwards; a torch that is always lit, enkindled by each of those it is passed to. Even us as a species will become a memory of the stars.

Twilight watched Celestia's eyes grow distant. She couldn't see what lay behind the windows of her soul, but she could imagine. Those eternal memories she always wondered about, flashing slowly across a timeless scale. It made her feel small. What was a simple unicorn like her compared to the longevity of an alicorn? And yet in the finality of it all, both of them would meet their ends, someday. What point was there in anything if nothing was everlasting?

Celestia nudged Twilight with her wing, looking at her with that same trademark smile. "But that's what makes life precious. These small moments of time are ours and ours alone, to define, to shape, to experience and see all the beauties the world has hidden from us. All the happiness, excitement and adventure, though fleeting, have a value without equal to us. That's why we have to make the most of our time here on this Earth. Because our time here is temporary in a universe without limits. And it is in this short window that the true value of life comes out.

"Friendship," Celestia stated, with an air of finality.

Twilight tilted her head. "Friendship?"

Celestia nodded. "It is in friendship that true miracles are created, in the bonds we create with others to share in our joy and sorrow. For when the Earth, the Moon, and even the Sun have passed, the relationships we strove to nourish will always extend far beyond our own lifespans. For you see, Twilight, it is in the journeys we experience together with our friends that truly lasts forever. Something that, in time, may transform into different shapes and forms, but will always stand the tests of time as its effects ripple across the future."

Twilight could only blink. "I-I think that was too deep for me, Princess Celestia…"

The old Alicorn Princess held a hoof to her a mouth as she giggled at the young filly's plight. "I'm sure you'll understand when you're older. Now then..." Celestia got up and straightened her back. "I think that's enough relaxing. It's time for your next magic lesson."

"Aww, but it's only been ten minutes!" Twilight whined, rolling her back against the grass and flailing her hooves.

"The sooner we get done, the sooner you can return to that new 'Daring Do' series you've been itching to get to," Celestia chided. She nuzzled Twilight's belly with her snout, earning a giggle from the adorable filly.

"Fiiiiine," Twilight moaned. She got up on her hooves and prepared herself, horn glowing with arcane energies. "I'm ready."

Celestia nodded. "Now the first step in transformation is focus." Celestia picked up a large stone and placed it atop a lone tree stump amongst grassy meadow. "Think of something, anything at all. A beautiful sunflower perhaps. Now try and focus your magic around this rock, down to its very essence, and transform. Think you can do it?"

"I-I think so…"

"Don't worry. We've got all night to practice."

And as Twilight's horn glowed with a pink arcane aura, she took a step forward into the future. In the coming years, she would learn a great deal about life, making new friends and embarking on grand adventures. Her road would always remain uncertain. But until the end of her inevitable destination, Twilight would make sure she made the most of her journey.


	2. Chapter 2: Princess of Magic

"There is a storm desolating my people for over a month straight, and I demand to know why!" Twilight flinched as a great-ape slammed his fist against the table.

Twilight Sparkle sat upon the summit of Mt. Snowdon within the land of the Griffon Kingdoms. More importantly, she also sat upon the summit meeting of the world's leaders. A gathering between great individuals that set aside all hostilities in the face of a greater danger.

The circular room was beautifully carved in marble, with statues of great Griffonic heroes who fought together to unify the warring states into a single united dynasty. In the middle was a round stone table, with representatives of every country, both small and large seated on luxurious seats of celestial ivory.

"Floods and whirlpools sink and destroy our trading ships, while lightning and hurricanes rip apart and burn our villages to the ground. And nobody seems to be doing anything about it!" Twilight flinched as the disgruntled gorilla suddenly pointed an accusing finger towards her. "It's you, isn't it? You damned Equestrians, always taking what they want with your fancy magic. You elitists always wanted our rich deposits of cobalt for yourself! As if your hoard of gems wasn't enough!"

A zebrican mare covered in golden rings besides Twilight scoffed. "Nobody wants your cobalt, you stupid buffoon. Your small excuse for a country doesn't even have a functioning economy, there's nothing to take. Stop making a a fool of yourself like you do in our other meetings. We've got the whole world watching and you're making our collective continent look bad."

"Why you-"

Twilight felt herself sink into the background as the two rival leaders threw age-old banter and insults at each other. A tap on her left shoulder brought her out of her stupor. It was the prime minister of the Griffon Kingdoms, dressed in a suit and leaning towards her with a friendly hand out for a hoofshake. She couldn't recall his name. "Glenn Hayworth. Princess Twilight Sparkle, I presume?"

She accepted the gesture. "Mhmm, that's right. Pleasure to meet you too, Glenn."

"Oho, the pleasure is all mine, my dear. I just wanted to let you know that if you ever needed any help or advice, you can call me. I knew your predecessors, Princess Celestia and Luna. They were very, very good people. Saints even. A shame that they had to meet such a gruesome end."

"Oh, um…Y-yeah."

"Don't mind all the tense air, by the way. It's not you. Everyone here is a little nervous, even me. The world hasn't seen a world summit like this since the rule of the last Draconequus. Infact, the only ones rumored to remain from that era is the Xing Pandaren, Wong. Her, and the old Draconian Lord, Scar, before all the dragons were unfortunately rendered extinct recently."

The fighting at the table had grown, with the ape and the zebra near to the point of jumping out of their seats and lunging at each other, hands and hooves on the table ready to pounce. None stepped in to stop the fighting, either out of uncertain fear or disgruntled recurrence.

"Think you got what it takes, little boy?"

"I've got more meat than you ever will, ass!"

Twilight raised a hoof to interject. Uneasiness seeped in as the entire table turned towards her. She gulped. "E-Equestria has been under a curse of weakening, as of late. My ponies have been having trouble utilizing their inner magic, to quite a disabling extent. Our Pegasi in particular cannot even move the clouds anymore. I'm sorry to say, but it's not us."

The ape snarled. "You expect me to believe such lies?"

"I—"

"My people have also encountered a similar predicament."

All eyes turned towards the literal 'elephant in the room', King Bahadur of Hindi. He motioned with his ringed metal staff as he spoke, drawing imaginary pictures and diagrams atop the stone table. "Mastodonians, as you all know, are one of the most ancient and magical of the civilized species, besides the Equestrians, Dragons, and the Pandarens. Of the four, our connection to the Earth knows no rivals. We feel the channels of mana within our soil, shaping and bending even mountains to our will. That was before what my people have recently began calling, 'The Great Pause.'

"The Soul of Gaia has been disrupted. It is there, basking us with its life and energy, but now changed, becoming resistant, saturated and chaotic. It's as if our world has grown tired of us pulling its strings, and has taken away its gifts. Once we were masters of the Earth. Now, I can hardly spawn a flower into maturity.

Murmurs spread through the room.

"You know, we sphinxes have had trouble casting magic as well!"

"Same here!"

"First was the typhoons and earthquakes, and now this? Now we've got two global problems?"

"Why is this happening? What could've done something like this?"

"I want answers!"

Twilight shrunk into her seat again as the table burst into confusion and uproar, praying that the attention of the table wasn't drawn to her once again. Her ears perked up in curiosity as she received another tap on the shoulder.

"The political front is always filled with some dramatics, usually from the younger ones. That was pretty smooth what you did there, most first timers crack and throw a fit under the pressure. I couldn't have handled it better myself," Glenn reassured with a grin.

Twilight gave back a forced laugh. "Well, I try."

"Silence!"

A ghoulish basketball-sized pandaren garbed in a red silken dress jumped into the air and slammed the tip of her wooden staff against the ground, sending a green wave of energy that washed over everyone in the room. Although no one had doubled over in nausea and pain from the widow queen's weakened signature spell, much less feel anything, all noise and movement had ceased. Landing perfectly balanced atop the handle of her staff, she spoke. "Are we not leaders of countries, chosen for our maturity and wisdom? We are innovators, not common jittery imps looking out for their own hides. We have all gathered here today for a purpose, to discuss a solution to the crisis at hand, not panic and fight amongst each other."

"Well, do you have any helpful ancient knowledge for us, oh wise Dowager?" A crane wearing a straw hat asked. The old panda bear ignored his obvious snarking tone.

"Unfortunately, I do not. An event this catastrophic at a global scale like this has never occurred before in the entirety of Earth's recorded history. Our best course of action at the moment would be to contain the damage and predict any future floods or earthquakes before they strike. That way, we can hopefully save as many lives as possible."

Murmurs again spread throughout the room. Most of agreement. One of questioning. "But the disasters just seem to spring up at random. If we don't understand the nature of this event, how are we supposed to predict it? Infact, how are we supposed to stop it?" a large black boar asked.

"Unfortunately, there might not be a way to stop this."

Twilight surprised herself as she blurted out those foreboding words. Once again, she was now at the full attention of the world. She nervously swallowed.

A large green stag with a circular-shaped antler slowly asked, "What do you mean by 'there might not be a way?'"

Twilight gave herself a few seconds to think out her words. It only made the air feel more tense. "Researchers and geologist at Manehatten a couple years back had discovered through samples of old volcanic rock that our planet is only at most a million years old. While that may seem extremely long for us, all of our simulations of planetary formation show that it should have taken us at least 4.6 _billion_ years to reach where we are today. The most common theory to this phenomena is that early streams of mana had accelerated the Earth's early molten stage after its creation, shortening the time required for life to develop and evolve around our current ecosystem. Where that mana came from and how, we still don't know."

"And this has what to do with-ow!" The gorilla yelped as a monkey wearing a ring-like crown elbowed him in the ribs.

Twilight pursed her lips before continuing. "Earth has always been geothermally unstable, why and how come it hasn't been affecting us negatively for thousands of years remained unknown until today. With our sudden magic loss and King Bahadur's earlier observation of the disruption of the mana streams, it seems the Earth is falling apart, and will eventually revert back to its original molten period. Without our world's magic, this seems to be the final outcome."

A heavy dread filled the room. Twilight mentally kicked herself. "T-that's only my theory anyway, based on the data at hand. I mean, I could be completely wrong, I'm all for damage control. I'm sure we'll be alright in the end, we've endured thus far! What's stopping us now?" Slow nods of agreement spread across the circle, eliciting a small sigh of relief from the mare.

A small white manx spoke up. "I'd still like to know though, if your theory turns out to be a true, what could have possibly done this? For all the magic in the world to just up and disappear is practically impossible, it has to go somewhere."

Twilight paused again. "Well, either we've got another supervillain like Tirek trying to take all the world's magic for himself… or maybe our magic isn't as infinite as we thought."

* * *

><p>"Nnnnng..."<p>

Poke.

"Give me a minute..."

Poke.

"..."

Poke.

Twilight grumbled in annoyance before she pushed off her star-patterned bedsheets, raising up her hooves in a stretch and a yawn. She turned to see Spike tapping the points of his draconic claws together nervously, his face fraught with worry. "Yes, Spike?"

Spike didn't respond. Twilight sighed and rubbed the sand out of her eyes. "Spike, I've had a very long day yesterday. If you broke a plate or something, I forgive you, alright? Just, let me..." Twilight looked back towards where Spike should have been standing, only to find a confused and a tad-bit scared guard pony. "Sleep?"

The grey winged stallion gulped. His large stocky body along with his clear crystalline armor did little to boost his self-confidence. He collapsed to his knees, dropping his sweaty face into the ground. "M-my a-apologies, Your H-Highness. I did not mean t-to wake you from your slumber."

Twilight sighed again. "I'm fine. Thank you for waking me. Silent Night, was it?"

"Yes, Your Highness. That is m-my name."

"You're forgiven. It's your first day as a guard, so there is no possible way you could've known about my… condition. No harm done, alright?".

"Y-yes. Thank you, Your Highness," the timid guard stuttered before standing up on his hooves, although still a little shaky.

She gave him a serene gentle smile, reminiscent of a strategy generations long past. "You're welcome, Silent Night. And please, just call me Twilight."

"Yes Your High- I mean Twilight. Again, thank you."

Giggles filled the air as Twilight laughed into her hoof. "Anytime, Silent Night," she replied before moving herself off her bed. "So, what's the problem?"

The guard paused and bit the bottom of his lip. Twilight was about to reassure him again when he finally spoke. "I... I don't know how to tell you, Your Highness. I think you need to see this for yourself."

Twilight tilted her head for a moment before nodding in approval. "Alright. Show me."

"Right this way, Your Highness," he replied with a salute. Twilight looked back towards Spike's old baby basket next to her regal bed before following her guard down through the hallway.

As Twilight walked across soft velvet, she couldn't help but gaze upon the murals decorating her stained glass windows. Scenes of great triumphs for her and her friends, each character life-like with rich personalities she could almost attribute to something higher than memory.

Applejack of Honesty, a diplomat traveling across the world and uniting species under a cause of harmony. Pinkie Pie of Laughter, washing away a Great Depression not as herself but as a philosopher, inspiring an "Era of Good Feelings". Rarity of Generosity, creating a vast economic utopia with her own free-given wealth and resources. Fluttershy of Kindness, bringing an end to the Great War with her greatest act of kindness. Rainbow Dash of Loyalty, surrounded by a prism of magic as she vanquished the Prime Evil amidst the falling and crumbling city of Canterlot.

And finally herself, with nothing to show off but as her final moments as a Unicorn, transforming into a beautiful and immortal Alicorn, a 'Princess of Magic'. An immortal princess, now alone.

Twilight would've bumped into the side of her castle doorway had Silent Night not given her a prod on the shoulder. "O-oh. Sorry Silent Night. Got a little lost in memory lane."

Silent Night gave a curt nod. "We're here, Your Highness," he said, before pushing the gates forward. Twilight shut her eyes against the bright sunlight as they adjusted. When she opened them again, she almost couldn't believe what she saw.

Above the sprawling metropolis of Ponyville was a massive vertical monolith, hanging high in the atmosphere for all of Equestria to see. Its sleek and violet body was twisted like a corkscrew, while large bulbous spheres adorned the underside of its giant umbrella-like head. If she had to guess on its size, she would probably say it was as big as the mountain Canterlot used to hang over. Which in all things considered, was a very big mountain.

Twilight sighed for the third time that day. "Just my luck."


End file.
